Sep 8 Inside the Defensive Numbers

The North Lamar Panthers are 2-0 on the young season. Most people will look at only the offense for the early success. However, you can’t look at the wins and not look at what the defense has done.

Against Commerce, the Panthers had 11 tackles for negative yardage. While they only had two against Whitesboro, they were both sacks. Even though they didn’t have as many plays for negative yards, they locked down for the last three quarters.

North Lamar gave up 14 points and 130 yards in the first quarter against Whitesboro. From that point on, the defense only allowed six points and 177 yards. To go even further with this, North Lamar only allowed 82 points in the second half. They also held Whitesboro off the scoreboard.

In the first half, Whitesboro had 153 yards rushing and 72 through the air. In the second, it was 62 on the ground and only 20 in the air. North Lamar also had another turnover in the game. That makes four in the two games, with all of them interceptions. Menderiz Gray has three of them while Trey Scudder has the other one. Scudder’s was returned for a touchdown against Commerce.

So, even though the offense has put up 96 points in the two games, the defense needs a lot of credit in the wins as they have only allowed 45 points.